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An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

reuters.com

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Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#311

Post by studentrob »

This story is HUGE

Entire copies of the SAT are getting released in China, and possibly the US. The College Board's ETS cancelled January 2016's test in China out of concern that the test that would be used was already available on the internet. Then they gave another test in March. Questions from that test started appearing online within hours after it finished [1]

The problem with this is that the College Board reuses tests. They do not feel it is feasible for them to issue unique questions for each test, according to [2]

This undermines the biggest criteria used to admit students to college

It means rich kids in China can buy their way into US colleges through these companies that compile actual SAT questions, and poorer kids who have done honest hard work will miss out on opportunities to study in the US.

So long as this goes unaddressed, we're importing rich kids who will arrive unprepared and return home without much further education. They're simply giving money to certain institutions in the US and not adding much to the development of US or Chinese innovations. The quality of schools could degrade, causing a weaker economy, etc. etc.

Hope the College Board can see how pervasive this is. The internet is a real game changer when it comes to maintaining academic integrity.

[1] https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat#t=26:21

[2] https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat#t=5:40

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#312

Post by ascorbic »

studentrob wrote: post #310
ascorbic wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realise that it's possible to be able to read and not speak it. However these students were supposed to have passed tests of written and spoken English proficiency. If they couldn't understand spoken English it will have been pretty difficult for them to understand the lectures and seminars. I certainly never said they were stupid. I know the languages are very different and it will have been very hard for them. I'…

> In the total of probably three or four months I've spent there over the past decade, not once has anyone responded to me in Swedish when I've spoken to them This behavior varies from country to country. In Cambodia, for example, people love when you speak khmer and will spend the whole day teaching you and showing you around the city. They are ridiculously friendly.

Yes, outside Europe it's certainly less widespread.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#313

Post by Ivannahack »

studentrob wrote: post #302
Ivannahack wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US

In what year? I find it hard to believe that someone studying in the US hasn't been briefed by other students that this is not part of American culture, particularly in the digital age Assuming it happened recently, my guess is this is more the exception than the rule

Student was definitely in the 1%. His dad owns a company that's on stock market, he has his own gaming servers company in China. He wore suits worth more than my monthly salary.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#314

Post by Ivannahack »

studentrob wrote: post #303
munchbunny wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that puts you in a really weird position. Speaking as someone who grew up with a foot in both worlds, the best way to handle it is to refuse the gift as inappropriate in American academic culture. (I'm assuming this was in an American institution.) Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting…

> Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting is basically signing on for the "deal". So, the person who tells you it is rude to decline, is really just attempting to persuade you to "sign the deal". After living in Asia for a few years, I can understand how accepting gifts from family members an…

This was in 2013. We had a Chinese liaison/translator who worked with us in the USA-she's the one who convinced me not to return the gift. It could be she also got a gift and had an interest in keeping it-couldn't say for sure.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#315

Post by studentrob »

Ivannahack wrote: post #314
studentrob wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting is basically signing on for the "deal". So, the person who tells you it is rude to decline, is really just attempting to persuade you to "sign the deal". After living in Asia for a few years, I can understand how accepting gifts from family members an…

This was in 2013. We had a Chinese liaison/translator who worked with us in the USA-she's the one who convinced me not to return the gift. It could be she also got a gift and had an interest in keeping it-couldn't say for sure.

Lol. That's nuts. You'd have ruined her rights to her gift if you returned yours ;-)

What a sneaky trick!! Who says the Chinese aren't brilliant.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#316

Post by Ivannahack »

davidmr wrote: post #62
sytelus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd heard that seats at Harvard was going for $20 million per piece for internal students who wouldn't remotely qualify otherwise. There are always few seats like these reserved at most universities. If you do the math, that one guy basically covers the cost of his entire class.

Do you have any citations for this? I'm extremely skeptical. Harvard doesn't need the $20M; they're doing just fine as it is.

The nature of the problem dictates it can't go on record. I can only add I've heard the same anecdotal from my international students, not necessarily about Harvard but similar higher-tier schools going for $50,000 admission, probably with more fees for a certain GPA.

The degrees for cash are sold abroad from what I've gathered. I highly doubt the money goes to Harvard directly-instead it probably pays off the service offering the degree first, with money to admissions directors, professors and whoever else needs to look the other way. It'd be hard to hide huge sums of money in the US system, but possible abroad with in-person or otherwise hidden pay offs to people on the inside in the USA.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#317

Post by studentrob »

Ivannahack wrote: post #313
studentrob wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what year? I find it hard to believe that someone studying in the US hasn't been briefed by other students that this is not part of American culture, particularly in the digital age Assuming it happened recently, my guess is this is more the exception than the rule

Student was definitely in the 1%. His dad owns a company that's on stock market, he has his own gaming servers company in China. He wore suits worth more than my monthly salary.

That explains a lot. Kid knows exactly how business works, though maybe misses the point that gift-giving is viewed as a negative thing in the West, particularly in education. Schools' reputation for integrity of calculated grades is everything for that business.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#318

Post by ethanbond »

studentrob wrote: post #290
sevensor wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you got "no one does wrong" from my comments. Allow me to clarify. Students are cheating. This is wrong. Universities are institutionally indifferent to student learning. This is wrong too. The latter is our point of disagreement. You make it clear in your first sentence that you don't think there's anything wrong with the university system, and that the institution is an innocent victim here. On t…

> You make it clear in your first sentence that you don't think there's anything wrong with the university system, and that the institution is an innocent victim here. On the other hand, I think there's plenty wrong with the system. American students already know by their college years that cheating has immediate negative consequences Why should the college need to hold the hand of foreign students who haven't been t…

Yeah, I'm not sure what GP thinks prevents rampant cheating from American students. It's not elaborate cheat detection systems — most students don't cheat simply because they choose not to.

And to act like this isn't a problem unique to Chinese students is a cop out. Culturally, there just isn't the same overwhelmingly negative view of cheating, and that difference is seeping through GP's justifications themselves despite GP ostensibly not being a cheater himself.

Sure a university should try to prevent cheating, and they do, but how far can they go? I don't want the costs of my education to skyrocket and the stresses on my professors to amplify just because some foreign students don't perceive an inherent wrongness with cheating.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#319

Post by ethanbond »

chuckcode wrote: post #235
sambe wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think they care about diluting their brand. At some point these degrees you say are worthless will mean people stop paying - don't you think?

Agreed. And this article could just as easily be run with the headline "Schools do almost nothing to stop known cheating" which would make for more bad press.

And what exactly should they do? Require students to bring two forms of ID to each test? Require students to sit in Faraday cages during exams? Isolation rooms?

A school can't prevent cheating outright and it's lame to act like it's the school's fault when American and European students understand just fine that cheating is simply wrong and disallowed. If a student wants to cheat, s/he will cheat. The fact that there's an entire industry built around one culture's penchant for doing so seems to imply that maybe that culture is the problem.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#320

Post by fatman13gg »

studentrob wrote: post #304
fatman13gg wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally, I don't think it is worth it. But if I hadn't studied abroad, it wouldn't have killed my interest to do so.

I understand 100%. I feel that way about a lot of things I try in life =) How are you doing now? By the way, I just watched a documentary about this kind of thing happening in China [1]. One American version of that story is a documentary named College, Inc [2] [1] https://youtu.be/BP61LwODTnY [2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/collegeinc/

Good Sharing. I come from a tier 1 city in China. The struggle people in [1] have seems very distant to me. I think they are good people, but they are just too naive to think they could get decent office jobs with such low grades. (At 5:37, it mentioned the girl only got 388 points for National Entrance Exam. It was terrible.) They might be better suited for a blue collar job or a service sector job (waiter/waitress etc). Those jobs might just pay much better.

And yes, I probably have better resources than those unfortunate. But guess who had paid the price? My great grandparents. They came to tier 1 city in 1900s, lived a hard life and did low skilled work like ironing cloth so that my grandparents could settle in city. The kid at 45:47 whining about how things were unfair to him was just making me sick.

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